Just keep on trying till you run out of cake

I currently have smurftime here, which obviously I can't use when I move. When I move I'm going to get ADSL, but I can't order that until I have a phone line. And because I'm wanting to move in before I go back to uni, this will mean that there's a period of time after I move and before I get ADSL. So the question is, what is the current state of the British dialup market? What sort of thing should I be looking for? Ideally I'd like something where I don't need to give them any money to sign up, and then could get freephone access, but I recognise that that's probably not possible. I'd also rather not sign up for a free trial of anything because they're a pain to get out of. My main criteria, I think is easiness -- I'm only going to be using it for a week or two and then throwing it away. Something that takes no time or effort. And then as my second critrerion, I want to spend as little money as possible. Advice?

If you deal with a competent ADSL ISP (Zen were one when I did this) and BT give you the right phone number when you ask them what the number will be on the line (BT didn't do ths for me) then you can get the ADSL install delay down to a small-handful of days. Zen at least also offer backup dialup; but I don't know if they'll provide that while you're waiting for linetests?

Might be worth a browse through http://www.ispreview.co.uk/ to get an idea of what the current market is like. Though I think if it's only for a couple of weeks, just being restrained with an 0845 service is probably easiest, because most of the unmetered places charge you for a month in advance anyway.

Just... not Virgin. Utter shite ISP and more trouble than they're worth.